Don't be too sure about the unreasonableness of the parent post's theory. The elimination of the Web through patent law would fit nicely into Microsoft's plans for the future of computing.
Bill Gate's proposal about removing the barriers between the desktop and the internet with a distributed and hidden filesystem would be much more attractive to customers if web browsers were to become exhorbatantly expensive due to royalty costs.
The settlement was large ($175 Million, IIRC), but not so large as to be threatening to a company with $50 Billion in available assets.
Enforcement of the Eolas patent is as great a threat to open source as it is Microsoft. Perhaps greater.
Both of the above mentioned "donations" were business deals. That would be fine, if MicroSoft were open about this, and stated it in terms of business instead of charity. The truth is that there is nothing ethical in leading a non-profit to accept a "donation" that will obligate them to $90,000.00 in hidden costs.
The difference between the SUN donation and Microstoft's is that SUN is actually making a donation, Microsoft is just tossing out a hook and bait in hopes that somebody will bite.
The bigger shame is how few Americans actually read the stuff.
If you'd like to avail yourself of this "sham", please feel free to visit the National Security Archive.
If you'd like to learn something more about the pricks who are currently running this country.
I especially advise you check out the section on the Iran Contra Affair. Many of the criminals mentioned in these docs are currently serving in the Bush administration.
If you would like to get some perspective on the Taliban, Al Q'aeda, and September 11 that the mainstream press doesn't quite cover, read the September 11th Sourcebooks.
I was referring to some lesser known ones. (that have even spawned some untrue "urban-legeneds")
What "urban legends" are those? What "lessor known issues" are you speaking of? And how does that justify your equating Aguinaldo's attempted revolution with "Islamic Terrorism"?
And you should be careful what you think of as "Urban Legend".
The US government subsidised the Taliban government through the 1990's, the U.S. backed Mujahudeen supported itself in part by exporting Hashish during the 1980's, and the organisation known as Al-Q'aeda was created to funnel donations (largely from Saudi Arabia and the U.S.) and weapons to terrorists that were fighting against the Soviet Occupiers in 1984.
If you want to talk about Iraq, then we have US intelligence operatives acting as advisors during Saddam Husein's solidification of power during the 1970's, his recieving of subsidies and weapons from the U.S. after his execution of his opponents in 1978, and the US backing both Iraq (publicly) and Iran (more privately) during thier war during the 1980's. The criticism of France for selling Hussein's government weapons is misdirected as those were NATO approved arms deals that were paid for mostly with subsidies from the U.S.
How about Iran? Perhaps the most telling thing about the Ayatollah Khomeini's "anti US stance was that one of the first things he did was arrest and execute 4000 "communists" that were listed on a CIA communique as "enemies" of Democracy. The Shah of Iran had been losing power throughout the 1970's and it was believed that only a coup would prevent Democratic reforms that the U.S. intelligence community believed would make Iran vulnerable to becoming communist.
To get this back on topic, yes, the Chinese government is much morerepressive and authoritarian than the U.S. government, but the US Intelligence community is and has been up to it's ears in the business of supporting terrorism (look up the "Iran-Contra" affair). The same people who back these activities also have been known to support the idea of censorship, and have been known to implement spin on the media through direct control of various media empires and actors unions. Look up the "Music Coporation of America" scandal and the Church Commision hearing documents from the 1960's.
Radical islamic terrorism is a disease that's over a hundred years old. Even against the U.S.A., it goes back almost a hundred years. Learn some history, I'd suggest starting with the Phillipines in 1911 with Gen. Pershing
If I remember my military history correctly, the 1911 uprising led had nothing to do with Islamic Militantism (most of the rebels were Catholic) and everything to do with Phillipine Nationalism. The issue was Phillipino Independance and the expulsion of the American colinizers.
Aguinaldo was not successful, but he did gain the respect of General Pershing who admired his leadership abilities and the strengths of the rebels as worthy adversaries. The US later named a military base after Gen. Aguinaldo.
At least that's the version I was taught by the U.S. Navy, but you know what a bunch of "liberals" those military guys are.
For many at Debian, the attitude is "Viva Free Software", but I'd expect that the majority of developers are more concerned about creating a distribution that "Does Not Suck".
By adhering to clearly defined licensing guidelines, Debian avoids much of the difficulty that preparers of comercial software must deal with. The developers and maintainers can concentrate on providing good, well packaged software, without worrying about contract obligations, delivery dates, or complex licensing concerns.
If the age of the software versions concerns you, then you should upgrade to "testing" which is probably the most up-to-date collection of software that is known to be free of serious bugs for a given number of days (10, 5, and 2 look here for more info on the "testing distribution).
Is there no geek ethic?
So to answer your question, yes, there is geek ethic, but sometimes the pragmatic decisions made in order to adhere to that ethic might look like something else.
If qmail is as reliable as tinydns, then it is inappropriate to call it "filth". The only reason it is in non-free is that he does not allow the redistribution of binary packages (which, IMHO, is not unreasonable).
It should be in non-free, and should not be part of Debian, but that is not to say that people should not use it.
Communism may not work, but I'd hardly call community owned software "Communism". Communism is defined by the outlawing of private real property, and I have yet to see any indication that intellectual goods can be accurately defined as property. Property is something that if it is taken from you, you are deprived of it, but intellectual goods taken leave you still in posession of those goods. That is why, until very recently, inellectual goods were covered only by patent and copyright law, the current "Intellectual Property" law crises has come about because of the attempts of powerful companies to propiatize intellectual goods, and to redifine patent, licensing, and copyright violations as a theft of property instead of theft of service or theft of potential income.
But all you have done is made yourself (and everyone else, except the person who has made changes to your code) better off (by ensuring that the access to the source code and the accompianing freedom to make changes to it remains) by taking away someone elses freedom (to restrict the freedoms of others including the community of developers who created the code that he has benefitted from without returing benefit to the community). If the same code that is released to the public domain is used and extended in a proprietary way, you are not made better off or worse off (but the community is, as there is less reason to act as a developer comunity if the product of your work can be relicensed away from the comunity), and you have given everyone complete freedom (except for the persons who recieve the derivative work and would like to make changes to it themselves).
The GPL is important to the community of users and developers who have grown around it. To invalidate this license would be to do irrepairable harm to that comunnity of immense monetary value that could only be calculated by estimating both the cost it would have entailed to develop this software in a "more traditional" licensing setting.
If companies and developers do not wish to use GPLed software, they should not use it. There are plenty of other Free Software licenses that encompass what you seem to view as ideal, such as the BSD license, or the MIT license.
Sun has repeatedly balked at standardizing Java due to the inherent loss of control.
I was pretty sure that Sun had published a Java standard. How is a standards org comprised of Micriosoft and it's vassals any better? I was under the impression that the only company that had problems with the Java standard was the one company that had attemped to hijack the standard by implementing undocumented extensions and breaking Suns published standard in order to make users dependant on thier own crappy browser. (Before any of you attempt to defend IE, please try using at least one other modern browser.)
Have things changed so much that we can trust Microsoft and its "standards body" largely consisting of companies dependent on Microsoft to keep all extensions to this "standard" in the open and available to all players? Can we trust them to not later replace the "standard" with propietary replacements requiring either licensing or a switch of platform to a Microsoft product?
Microsoft has attempted to hijack widely accepted standards in the past, is there any indication that this copmpany even knows what the word means?
No, I think the posters point is that they shopuld never implement anythink that anyone else has done and proven to be a good idea without being honest about the fact that the idea was not originally thiers , even if it might mean that a few of thier customers might happen to look at a competing product that they did not know would suit thier purposes.
To remove all competitors and hardware platform competition.
They are completely within their rights in doing these things.
Wrong. Being a monopoly, Microsoft is not permitted to do either of the first two items on your list, as it would run coumter to anti-trust regulations.
These laws were written in the late nineteenth century to counter the increasing control over comerce that the railroad industry was having over trade and the damaging effects of that control on interstate trade and on private citizens.
It was costing farmers more to transport thier goods to market than could be gained from the sale of those goods, RR company investments in banking and mortgage companies were enabling them to evict farmers from thier land and to replace them with company owned tennants, and the price of foodstuffs was becoming exhorbitantly expensive for consumers as the RRs were beginning to control the markets over the goods they were transporting as well as the market for transporting those goods.
Essentially, the Railroad companies enjoyed majority monopolies in the markets that they served and were using thier monopoly control to regulate those markets. This was unacceptable to the private citizens who were increasingly finding themselves subject to rules and regulations that were unevenly applied (Goods from the RR company owned farms were shipped "free" while the rates were being increased to push the family farms closer to forclosure) and were implimented by persons who they did not elect and who were in no way representing them.
The possibility of a single company controlling digital communication and the tools necessary for business in a world dependant on computers in order to conduct the affairs of government and business is exactly the reason that antitrust laws were authored.
It is the consumer and communication industry that needs to fight this monolyth
As most of the communication industry enjoys near monopolies on last-mile technologies, it is unlikely that they will embrace any alternative to the possibility of restrively licensed technology. They are too afraid that open technologies will be able to lower the cost of entry into the last-mile market and alow smaller competitors to threaten thier currently strong positions.
the sooner the consumer realises this the better.
Agreed, but it is difficult when media associations and communication giants enjoy the power that they currently have. It is against the interest of the media to suggest that monopoly is harmful when the media companies are attempting to deregulate (through lobbying the FCC) in attempts to gain monopolies over individual markets. Likewise, it is against the interests of the communications giants to support (or permit) alternatives to Microsoft software when they themselves are attempting to regulate how consumers are using the connetions that they are selling. The cross investment between big media and the communications giants ensures that the news will foster an belief among consumers that there are not any monopolies in the software, media, and communications industries, and that if there were it would not be a bad thing.
IMHO, it is perfectly fine to use the courts in an attempt to apply currently existing law in order to pry open the markets, including going to court as well as applying the laws that these companies use to maintain thier monopoly positions in new ways (ala GPL).
Then you must be buying from the wrong bike lockKryptonite Lock comes with an anti-theft guarantee of up to $1500.00 and the Masterlock Bicycle lock carries an anti-theft Guarantee of up to $3000.00.
Perhaps someone can print paper copies to send to them?
DDOS thier mail room!
I can imagine the news coverage:
Postal service slows to a halt in an onslaught of documents critical of Deibold Electronic voting machines. One postal carier was quoted as saying "We haven't had manditory overtime like this since the eighties! But thats O.K. by me. I'll just stop by the Walmart on my way home and buy me a GUN!"
Federal Investigators reportedly do not know who is responsibe for this bizarre attack, but are seeking the identity of an online poster who uses the Alias "setzman" as a possible instigator.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't be too sure about the unreasonableness of the parent post's theory. The elimination of the Web through patent law would fit nicely into Microsoft's plans for the future of computing.
Bill Gate's proposal about removing the barriers between the desktop and the internet with a distributed and hidden filesystem would be much more attractive to customers if web browsers were to become exhorbatantly expensive due to royalty costs.
The settlement was large ($175 Million, IIRC), but not so large as to be threatening to a company with $50 Billion in available assets.
Enforcement of the Eolas patent is as great a threat to open source as it is Microsoft. Perhaps greater.
Both of the above mentioned "donations" were business deals. That would be fine, if MicroSoft were open about this, and stated it in terms of business instead of charity. The truth is that there is nothing ethical in leading a non-profit to accept a "donation" that will obligate them to $90,000.00 in hidden costs.
The difference between the SUN donation and Microstoft's is that SUN is actually making a donation, Microsoft is just tossing out a hook and bait in hopes that somebody will bite.
but it's the only thing we've got.
The bigger shame is how few Americans actually read the stuff.
If you'd like to avail yourself of this "sham", please feel free to visit the National Security Archive.
If you'd like to learn something more about the pricks who are currently running this country.
I especially advise you check out the section on the Iran Contra Affair. Many of the criminals mentioned in these docs are currently serving in the Bush administration.
If you would like to get some perspective on the Taliban, Al Q'aeda, and September 11 that the mainstream press doesn't quite cover, read the September 11th Sourcebooks.
And always remember to search beyond the collections to find the stuff they forgot was released in other investigations (such as this evidence that Rumsfeld, Poindexter and pals were paying for thier illegal terrorist operations in Central America with DRUG MONEY)
There may be problems with FOIA, but the biggest problem is that not enough of you are willing to make use of what is available.
I was referring to some lesser known ones. (that have even spawned some untrue "urban-legeneds")
What "urban legends" are those? What "lessor known issues" are you speaking of? And how does that justify your equating Aguinaldo's attempted revolution with "Islamic Terrorism"?
And you should be careful what you think of as "Urban Legend".
The US government subsidised the Taliban government through the 1990's, the U.S. backed Mujahudeen supported itself in part by exporting Hashish during the 1980's, and the organisation known as Al-Q'aeda was created to funnel donations (largely from Saudi Arabia and the U.S.) and weapons to terrorists that were fighting against the Soviet Occupiers in 1984.
If you want to talk about Iraq, then we have US intelligence operatives acting as advisors during Saddam Husein's solidification of power during the 1970's, his recieving of subsidies and weapons from the U.S. after his execution of his opponents in 1978, and the US backing both Iraq (publicly) and Iran (more privately) during thier war during the 1980's. The criticism of France for selling Hussein's government weapons is misdirected as those were NATO approved arms deals that were paid for mostly with subsidies from the U.S.
How about Iran? Perhaps the most telling thing about the Ayatollah Khomeini's "anti US stance was that one of the first things he did was arrest and execute 4000 "communists" that were listed on a CIA communique as "enemies" of Democracy. The Shah of Iran had been losing power throughout the 1970's and it was believed that only a coup would prevent Democratic reforms that the U.S. intelligence community believed would make Iran vulnerable to becoming communist.
To get this back on topic, yes, the Chinese government is much morerepressive and authoritarian than the U.S. government, but the US Intelligence community is and has been up to it's ears in the business of supporting terrorism (look up the "Iran-Contra" affair). The same people who back these activities also have been known to support the idea of censorship, and have been known to implement spin on the media through direct control of various media empires and actors unions. Look up the "Music Coporation of America" scandal and the Church Commision hearing documents from the 1960's.
Radical islamic terrorism is a disease that's over a hundred years old. Even against the U.S.A., it goes back almost a hundred years. Learn some history, I'd suggest starting with the Phillipines in 1911 with Gen. Pershing
If I remember my military history correctly, the 1911 uprising led had nothing to do with Islamic Militantism (most of the rebels were Catholic) and everything to do with Phillipine Nationalism. The issue was Phillipino Independance and the expulsion of the American colinizers.
Aguinaldo was not successful, but he did gain the respect of General Pershing who admired his leadership abilities and the strengths of the rebels as worthy adversaries. The US later named a military base after Gen. Aguinaldo.
At least that's the version I was taught by the U.S. Navy, but you know what a bunch of "liberals" those military guys are.
Will Google be as good once they are a public company?
Probably not. (reference: VAResearch, ArsDigita, etc)
For many at Debian, the attitude is "Viva Free Software", but I'd expect that the majority of developers are more concerned about creating a distribution that "Does Not Suck".
By adhering to clearly defined licensing guidelines, Debian avoids much of the difficulty that preparers of comercial software must deal with. The developers and maintainers can concentrate on providing good, well packaged software, without worrying about contract obligations, delivery dates, or complex licensing concerns.
If the age of the software versions concerns you, then you should upgrade to "testing" which is probably the most up-to-date collection of software that is known to be free of serious bugs for a given number of days (10, 5, and 2 look here for more info on the "testing distribution).
Is there no geek ethic?
So to answer your question, yes, there is geek ethic, but sometimes the pragmatic decisions made in order to adhere to that ethic might look like something else.
If qmail is as reliable as tinydns, then it is inappropriate to call it "filth". The only reason it is in non-free is that he does not allow the redistribution of binary packages (which, IMHO, is not unreasonable).
It should be in non-free, and should not be part of Debian, but that is not to say that people should not use it.
Pleasing the unwashed masses is not my task.
Most of the Debian developers would probably read your sig and decide that it's the best possible answer they can find to your criticism.
Try UliGo.
Nice life and death (plus a few, more ambiguous, "best move") problems for when an actual opponent can't be found.
It's called communism, and it doesn't work
Communism may not work, but I'd hardly call community owned software "Communism". Communism is defined by the outlawing of private real property, and I have yet to see any indication that intellectual goods can be accurately defined as property. Property is something that if it is taken from you, you are deprived of it, but intellectual goods taken leave you still in posession of those goods. That is why, until very recently, inellectual goods were covered only by patent and copyright law, the current "Intellectual Property" law crises has come about because of the attempts of powerful companies to propiatize intellectual goods, and to redifine patent, licensing, and copyright violations as a theft of property instead of theft of service or theft of potential income.
thanks.
My example most certainly is life:
O X
;-)
123456
1++++++
2+OOO++
3+O+OX+
4+XO+OX
5+XOO
6++XXX+
O still has one "liberty" at 3,3.
Nice try, "kyu-boy".
(BTW, I'm not Shodan either.)
But all you have done is made yourself (and everyone else, except the person who has made changes to your code) better off (by ensuring that the access to the source code and the accompianing freedom to make changes to it remains) by taking away someone elses freedom (to restrict the freedoms of others including the community of developers who created the code that he has benefitted from without returing benefit to the community). If the same code that is released to the public domain is used and extended in a proprietary way, you are not made better off or worse off (but the community is, as there is less reason to act as a developer comunity if the product of your work can be relicensed away from the comunity), and you have given everyone complete freedom (except for the persons who recieve the derivative work and would like to make changes to it themselves).
The GPL is important to the community of users and developers who have grown around it. To invalidate this license would be to do irrepairable harm to that comunnity of immense monetary value that could only be calculated by estimating both the cost it would have entailed to develop this software in a "more traditional" licensing setting.
If companies and developers do not wish to use GPLed software, they should not use it. There are plenty of other Free Software licenses that encompass what you seem to view as ideal, such as the BSD license, or the MIT license.
try this:
++++++
+OOO++
+O+O++
++O+O+
++OOO+
++++++
Fewer stones, easier to achieve.
Just follow your nose.
PDF is a proprietory format. Owned by Adobe.
If this is out there, then I can see no reason that MicroSoft can't roll thier own PDF filters, viewers or editors.
Who the hell is the ECMA?
Look at thier site.
Aparently people cannot be members, only companies and universities (non-profit companies)
Why not an IETF standard?
They've served very well so far.
Sun has repeatedly balked at standardizing Java due to the inherent loss of control.
I was pretty sure that Sun had published a Java standard. How is a standards org comprised of Micriosoft and it's vassals any better? I was under the impression that the only company that had problems with the Java standard was the one company that had attemped to hijack the standard by implementing undocumented extensions and breaking Suns published standard in order to make users dependant on thier own crappy browser. (Before any of you attempt to defend IE, please try using at least one other modern browser.)
Have things changed so much that we can trust Microsoft and its "standards body" largely consisting of companies dependent on Microsoft to keep all extensions to this "standard" in the open and available to all players? Can we trust them to not later replace the "standard" with propietary replacements requiring either licensing or a switch of platform to a Microsoft product?
Microsoft has attempted to hijack widely accepted standards in the past, is there any indication that this copmpany even knows what the word means?
No, I think the posters point is that they shopuld never implement anythink that anyone else has done and proven to be a good idea without being honest about the fact that the idea was not originally thiers , even if it might mean that a few of thier customers might happen to look at a competing product that they did not know would suit thier purposes.
To control digital communication world wide.
To remove all competitors and hardware platform competition.
They are completely within their rights in doing these things.
Wrong. Being a monopoly, Microsoft is not permitted to do either of the first two items on your list, as it would run coumter to anti-trust regulations.
These laws were written in the late nineteenth century to counter the increasing control over comerce that the railroad industry was having over trade and the damaging effects of that control on interstate trade and on private citizens.
It was costing farmers more to transport thier goods to market than could be gained from the sale of those goods, RR company investments in banking and mortgage companies were enabling them to evict farmers from thier land and to replace them with company owned tennants, and the price of foodstuffs was becoming exhorbitantly expensive for consumers as the RRs were beginning to control the markets over the goods they were transporting as well as the market for transporting those goods.
Essentially, the Railroad companies enjoyed majority monopolies in the markets that they served and were using thier monopoly control to regulate those markets. This was unacceptable to the private citizens who were increasingly finding themselves subject to rules and regulations that were unevenly applied (Goods from the RR company owned farms were shipped "free" while the rates were being increased to push the family farms closer to forclosure) and were implimented by persons who they did not elect and who were in no way representing them.
The possibility of a single company controlling digital communication and the tools necessary for business in a world dependant on computers in order to conduct the affairs of government and business is exactly the reason that antitrust laws were authored.
It is the consumer and communication industry that needs to fight this monolyth
As most of the communication industry enjoys near monopolies on last-mile technologies, it is unlikely that they will embrace any alternative to the possibility of restrively licensed technology. They are too afraid that open technologies will be able to lower the cost of entry into the last-mile market and alow smaller competitors to threaten thier currently strong positions.
the sooner the consumer realises this the better.
Agreed, but it is difficult when media associations and communication giants enjoy the power that they currently have. It is against the interest of the media to suggest that monopoly is harmful when the media companies are attempting to deregulate (through lobbying the FCC) in attempts to gain monopolies over individual markets. Likewise, it is against the interests of the communications giants to support (or permit) alternatives to Microsoft software when they themselves are attempting to regulate how consumers are using the connetions that they are selling. The cross investment between big media and the communications giants ensures that the news will foster an belief among consumers that there are not any monopolies in the software, media, and communications industries, and that if there were it would not be a bad thing.
IMHO, it is perfectly fine to use the courts in an attempt to apply currently existing law in order to pry open the markets, including going to court as well as applying the laws that these companies use to maintain thier monopoly positions in new ways (ala GPL).
The lock company ain't gonna do shit.
Then you must be buying from the wrong bike lock Kryptonite Lock comes with an anti-theft guarantee of up to $1500.00 and the Masterlock Bicycle lock carries an anti-theft Guarantee of up to $3000.00.
When you have a house and it's broken into, you're going to hope that the kids that did it are caught and put in jail.
Same for the kid who steals my bike.
But if steals my bile while it's locked up, he can keep it, cause that lock company is sure as hell going to buy me a new one.
Perhaps someone can print paper copies to send to them?
DDOS thier mail room!
I can imagine the news coverage:
Postal service slows to a halt in an onslaught of documents critical of Deibold Electronic voting machines. One postal carier was quoted as saying "We haven't had manditory overtime like this since the eighties! But thats O.K. by me. I'll just stop by the Walmart on my way home and buy me a GUN!"
Federal Investigators reportedly do not know who is responsibe for this bizarre attack, but are seeking the identity of an online poster who uses the Alias "setzman" as a possible instigator.
Tune in later for more coverage of...
And hillbillies prefer to be called 'sons of the soil'.
The term is folk.
Great Idea, I've got a couple of suggestions for you:
It Cant Happen Here
and
Fahrenheit 451